You come from a humble background and are brought to the big city to prepare yourself for the war you’ve only heard about.

Chapter 1

Level yourself from 1 to Level Cap. And be quick about it. You, slacker, are holding up your friends.

Chapter 2

Raid the latest and greatest. If you managed to keep up with your “friends.”

Chapter 3

Loot!

Epilogue

There is no happy ending. That loot is only there to get the next loot which is only there to get the next loot which is only there… Stress out, burn out, chill out, drop out. Re-sub.

Too bad his creation has become something he does not appear to be all too happy with. It’s too damn casual for him, basically. If you’re willing to climb up a hill to go to school, both ways, he’ll do it in the snow. If you do it in the snow he’ll go with bare feet. If you do it with bare feet, he’ll add razor spikes. He wants that gap between hardcore and casual. The bigger the gap, the more of a winner you are. The game must provide you the opportunity to make as big an e-peen as you can. (Grand Marshal title anyone? How many lives did that ruin?)

The winners, those who need that gap, always have Darkfall or Conan. If they’ve got the balls for it. (Those that don’t will roll on an RP server and park their mammoths on the quest giver in Wintergrasp. They’re big like that.)

But wait, I invalidate his own argument there. No, the “winners” have to play in a casual world. Their accomplishments are meaningless when compared to other players with skillz. Without the unwashed ranks of casuals to feel good against, what have you got? You have to have casuals in order to make the leet feel leet. If everyone else is in Tier 10 too, you’ve got bupkis.

I wonder if we’ll ever see a casual game for casual players. And no, even I don’t want Sims with Swords. How about something more about exploration than conquest? A virtual world that’s more about “living” in it than reaching it’s conclusion over and over (and demanding new conclusions over and over).

I seriously hope WoW2 is not a game where you 1) RUSH TO LEVEL CAP, 2) Raid. (Then you may as well simply offer max level characters out of the box and let them simply do arenas and puzzle events. Screw the story and lore and backdrop. They’re for the tourists who otherwise fund all this. But then Guild Wars has already done that.)

I’m just piqued that he’s even complaining just a little about the great game they’ve made. NEWS FLASH: Count your subs. Know you’ve created something unique. Rest on your laurels. Go ahead and expand on what you’ve got, all of it, if you want for a followup. I don’t want to see a World of Raids.

One Response to What I take away from the Pardo interview

I didn’t read it like that. Yes, he acknowledges his hardcore roots and points out how it influenced the initial design. Then he seems almost apologetic, and points out how much the game has changed. I didn’t get a feel that he no longer likes the game.